Turns out it's a lot more complicated than that. "Points", and in particular, the abbreviation "PT" for it, is used in Competition mode, and it is separate from Score. You can't easily use "S" either because of the constant usage of Super Sonic, both words starting with "S". Many icons were thought up, and most of them ended up not working in one way or another. It's not that we all went "LOL TOUHOUS" like a lot of people here seem to think. There simply isn't a good way to represent "score" in a 12x12 icon, and the 点 kanji ended up being the one used.

Now, I'm not in objection to changing it, personally, but any replacement has to do BETTER, which means it needs to mean the same thing in all contexts, regardless of culture. For instance, one of the designs we debated was the # character, meaning "number". Unfortunately, # doesn't actually mean that everywhere it's used. In most European countries, # is a hash and doesn't have the other meaning it does in the Americas. Many other commonly used icons and symbols have different meanings in different cultures. Believe it or not, a check mark means a wrong answer in Japan, for example.

This is part of the reason why using 点 works. It has a specific meaning and the player will either recognize it and what it means or won't. There isn't a circumstance where the player will recognize it but think it means something else. It also fits just fine in a 12x12 icon, which is another nasty restraint.

Also the random kanji thing just needs to be replaced with a star, or a tiny "100". Seriously, no one will get that outside of a small audience, and other two represent points much better if you're scavenging for ideas of what to fit in there.

I know this is gonna sound a lot like Jimmy Carter or Clinton offering up their opinions on George W. Bush policy decisions, but I highly disagree with using Kanji in the game. You should be able to communicate with a language-neutral symbol or picture. I don't remember seeing any Kanji in a Sonic game before from the 90s...unless you count something maybe not seen often, or an easter egg.

If you can't fit anything meaningful into 12x12 icons, then maybe the menu needs to be redesigned.

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I know this is gonna sound a lot like Al-Qaeda offering op their opinions on George W. Bush policy decisions, but I think that combining colour-coded emblems with symbolism/iconography is incredibly confusing. Heck, the entire system appears to be overcooked. Is there in-game documentation that outlines every permutation of emblem, without becoming a massive wall of text? Why are there two emblems with the same icon, but different colours? Is that even significant? Why do you need 8 different colours for emblems? All I keep on asking is "Why?" and "What?".

Tear it all out while you still can, guys. The system I'm looking at now is incredibly unapproachable as an end-user. It's not too late to use simplistic global achievements for skill-based objectives. Assign them all some kind of per-unit worth in-game and use the total amount acquired for discerning what unlockables you should have access to. Easy to understand, easy to implement, easy to display to the user. Voila.

I know this is gonna sound a lot like Jimmy Carter or Clinton offering up their opinions on George W. Bush policy decisions, but I highly disagree with using Kanji in the game. You should be able to communicate with a language-neutral symbol or picture. I don't remember seeing any Kanji in a Sonic game before from the 90s...unless you count something maybe not seen often, or an easter egg.

Funny you should mention that:

Now, personally I agree that it's an ugly, ugly hack, just like the game the above image is from. I'm simply not sure what a non-ugly hack here would look like. A lot of the icons we used had major problems in one way or another, and the kanji is just the easy solution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whackjood

When I first saw the kanji I mistook it for a flag, which communicates the idea of a score icon pretty well if you ask me.

Why not just use a small flag?

While I'm not sure a flag is a great replacement, if you guys object to the kanji, this is the type of post that's most likely to help us find a replacement: legitimate, possibly usable suggestions for a replacement.

I know this is gonna sound a lot like Al-Qaeda offering op their opinions on George W. Bush policy decisions, but I think that combining colour-coded emblems with symbolism/iconography is incredibly confusing. Heck, the entire system appears to be overcooked. Is there in-game documentation that outlines every permutation of emblem, without becoming a massive wall of text? Why are there two emblems with the same icon, but different colours? Is that even significant? Why do you need 8 different colours for emblems? All I keep on asking is "Why?" and "What?".

Tear it all out while you still can, guys. The system I'm looking at now is incredibly unapproachable as an end-user. It's not too late to use simplistic global achievements for skill-based objectives. Assign them all some kind of per-unit worth in-game and use the total amount acquired for discerning what unlockables you should have access to. Easy to understand, easy to implement, easy to display to the user. Voila.

If I recall correctly, I think the first 4 or 5 emblems for the normal stages are just ones that can be found by any character. The last couple are ones that you earn (like score, rings, and time). As far as the emblem with the same symbol, but different color one goes, it seems like that one is for nights special stages (if that is true, I hope you can access them through time attack mode). If the first 5 mean the same thing, but are different locations, why not just have the same symbol but different colors?

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Special stage records are accessed through a NiGHTS mode, which is similar to Record Attack mode, except purely for the NiGHTS stages. You still have to beat the special stages in the main game to get access to them in NiGHTS mode.

If the first 5 mean the same thing, but are different locations, why not just have the same symbol but different colors?

Dave Perry gave a speech at GDC in 1999(?) that covered this topic. I'd link it if I could still find the transcript. You don't want to use color to differentiate stuff in a game when possible. This was a huge driving force behind (finally) changing the look of the shields in SRB2 so they weren't just colored orbs.

Only problem I see with 100 is it seems like the emblem requires 100 of ... something. It's not really specified. As stupid as it sounds, that's the first thought I would have. Not sure if others would feel that way though.